1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an audio reproduction system, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus to automatically match keys between music being reproduced from an audio source and music being performed on a desired instrument.
2. Description of the Related Art
With an improvement in quality of life, people today have a growing interest in hobby activities, especially, music or playing a musical instrument.
A lot of practice is needed in learning to play a musical instrument. Practicing playing an instrument according to the music being performed or previously performed by a famous artist is effective. Novice performers practicing playing his/her instrument in a certain key rather than in different keys over a short period of time is also effective. However, pieces of music are written in different keys and a piece of music written in a specifically desired key is hard to obtain.
For example, conventionally, when an electronic musical instrument is played to music being reproduced from a CD or mp3 file, a performer had to seek a key in which the music is played and manually change the key of the electronic instrument to the key of the played music. The conventional method of playing an electronic musical instrument has a problem associated with a difficulty for a novice performer to detect the key of music. Another problem is that the performer has to change the setting of the electronic instrument as required.
As another example, if an acoustic musical instrument is played to music being reproduced from a CD or mp3 file, a performer has to select only the music recorded in the desired key. However, changing the key of music or an instrument to a desired key is practically impossible for the performer.
Furthermore, a key matching system currently being used in singing rooms (karaoke rooms) is designed to raise or lower the music key by 2 or 3 octaves according to gender regardless of a key desired by a singer, instead of adjusting a key of a selected piece of music to match a singing voice. Thus, the key matching system cannot fine-tune a pitch to the desired key.